Bulgarian and Romanian officials on Wednesday warmly welcomed a European Commission report confirming that both countries were on course to join the European Union in January 2007.
"We are extremely satisfied. For the first time, the commission has specified the date of January 1," 2007 for Bulgaria to join the 25-member bloc, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy said on national radio.
"With this report, the commission has recognised that Bulgaria will become a de facto member of the union from the moment it signs its accession agreement, as soon as possible in 2005," said Passy.
Meanwhile, Romania's top negotiator with Brussels, Vasile Puscas, hailed the EU's report as "very encouraging, very useful for Bucharest".
"This balanced and objective report clearly confirms all the stages Bucharest still has to pass through in order to join the EU: closing negotiations by the end of the year, signing a treaty of accession in 2005 followed by membership on January 1, 2007," he told AFP.
"We now know exactly where the sensitive areas are, and where we need to work hardest," he said, adding that Bucharest would "set a fast pace for reforms" in order to meet the EU's calendar.
The EU's executive confirmed Wednesday that both Romania and Bulgaria, left out of this year's "big bang" expansion of the European Union, had fulfilled the bloc's political criteria and were on track to join in 2007.
